what i love #1 - diet coke

i am stealing the idea for this blog from my good friend william, who freely admits that he borrowed it from someone else. this will not stop william from being mad at me for stealing his idea, but i think it's a good idea. and i like making lists of things.

(ps: can we totally high-five me for learning how to link to things on my blog? up high!)



i love diet coke. i believe that i could give up eating meat, or cheese, or even jelly beans sooner than i could give up diet coke.

i used to not like diet coke. at all. back when i was an office worker in university, there was a fridge full of carbonated beverages, and i could have one whenever i wanted. a month of having a coke whenever i wanted led to some fairly serious clothing-zipping issues, and i basically just talked myself into liking diet coke as a way of making my jeans fit again.

i would take a diet coke out of the mini-fridge, and, before i opened it, say to myself, diet coke is soooo delicious! eventually i came to believe it. now if i'm stuck with regular coke or coke zero (which i will drink in a pinch, since carbonated brown sugar water is the gas that makes my engine go) i feel like i'm drinking cough syrup. which is also something i enjoy, for sure. just not during a movie.

(i have tried and failed to talk myself into liking other things, most notably flossing and the stairmaster. though maybe i just wasn't trying so hard those times.)

between an oil slick and an a-bomb

like being stuck between a rock and a hard place. only, you know, worse.

if you're the sort of person who reads the news, and i really hope you are, you may have heard about troubles in the waters around both korea and mississippi. the two places i think of as my home.

here in south korea there's the chance that kim jong-il is really sad about dying without ever trying out his military. this is, i admit slightly worrying. i do not want to be blown up before seeing river again and convincing my brother and his wife to name the new baby ephraim. it's a good name!

thus far, however, the only ill effect i've felt is a kind of sucky exchange rate. i remain confident that any north korea soldiers who accost me could be easily distracted by the granola bars i keep in my purse, just in case. not much food up there. if that doesn't work, i'll invite them home and demonstrate how my television turns on and off when i want it to, and has many, many fine channels. plus: more granola bars in my house.

and back at home in mississippi there's a chance that British Petroleum is trying to ensure that my american family evolves into some sort of x-man-esque half-human, half-tar ball nature-destroying crime syndicate. like, i am actually more worried that i'm going to come home in august and discover that my niece is now made mostly of crude oil.

and now i will cease making fun of the oil spill in the gulf of mexico, because it makes me physically ill. i cannot watch the news without crying. i cannot speak of it to other people without crying. i am crying right now as i type. that is my home. that is where i live. and it is being destroyed in a manner that was completely preventable.

medicinal frog

so, i've got some allergy, asthma type issues. perhaps, because, against medical advice, i refuse to chuck my kitty out. mama loves luna!

one of the medicines that i've been prescribed is this here cough syrup.



i believe that i have been prescribed a frog-based product. i believe this not only because there is a frog on the packaging, looking coyly offstage as if to say, i taste gooooood, though that is certainly reason enough. but also because the medicine tastes like hot buttered ass. now, tristan, you may be saying, ALL medicine tastes like hot buttered ass. A) not true. nyquil tastes like happiness. B) this particular medicine tastes like swampy hot buttered ass. it tastes like swamp. you know, the place where frogs live.

a foreign country is not bourbon street, you jagoffs.

sometimes foreigners living in korea get a bad rap. we get blamed for-slash-accused of a lot of things that are not really our fault. like mad cow disease.

and sometimes, foreigners living in korea make the case for a cleansing mass deportation in a stellar and unflinching manner.

the other weekend i happened upon a group of expats participating in what was unabashedly billed as an "alcoholic scavenger hunt." some of the tasks included, apparently, running naked down the street in the middle of the day, jumping into a moving vehicle driven by a korean, and climbing to the top of a very well-know landmark (which is at least 25 feet off the ground). all whilst drinking. on the street. at, like, 2pm. at 2pm on a saturday people are buying their children ice cream.

i really hate sounding like a miserable old fuddy-duddy who hates the young, with their hairless nether-regions and joy, but fo' realz people. fo' really realz. we are guests in these peoples' home.

korea is not mardi gras, and it's not college. if, honestly, you'd have no problem running down the street naked at 2pm in your own personal north american hometown, more power to you. but korea's not the place for you.

bikini waxing

for some ungodly reason, i keep falling into conversations about bikini region upkeep with the people i know. i need you to know that A) i don't start these conversations and B) i'm all for maintaining good hygene. but here's the thing. i have never, and never plan on ever, getting a bikini wax. why?



because i feel like if you were to make an itemized list of all the things a lady should never put near her cooch, it would go a little something like this:



1. alligators

2. razor blades

3. hot wax

4. kevin federline



numbers one and four are easily enough side-stepped, assuming one is neither a japanese porn star nor brittney spears. so why the hell would i go running into the arms of numbers two and three?

sweet belly

sweet belly is the affectionate name i have for what surely must be my second stomach. for you see, no matter how much salty/savory food i manage to shove down my gullet (hint: it's a lot), i always have room for something sweet. like a giant, costco-sized tub of jelly bellies.

i've had this particular tub of jelly bellies for just over two weeks now. that's right. fourteen days. i like candy. it's about 2/3 empty. and about half of what's left are just the jelly belly flavors i don't particularly care for. we really need four flavors of coffee jelly beans? not, say, more peach ones?

i'm keeping all the flavors i don't particularly love (cappuccino AND cafe latte?!!? really?) because one day i may be so desperately in need of something made entirely of sugar that i'll eat them. i don't want to know what that day looks like. there will probably be no mascara, and i'll be kicking puppies. but you gotta be prepared.

orphan sandwich

firstly, yes, i realize i went away for a very long time. called out by my dad. sorry, pops.

anyway, the purpose of this blog, one of the very many i plan on writing to explain what the all i've been doing for the past months, is to tell you about the orphan sandwich.

there's a place in itaewon called suji's. apparently there are other branches in other parts of seoul, but i've only ever gone to the 'twon. the make a rueben sandwich that is completely ridiculous.

how ridiculous? well, if you told me, four bites in, that the sandwich was made entirely of orphans, i would finish it. it's too delicious to discard, and it's also too late for angelina to do those orphans any good.

perhaps not the ringing endorsement a fine dining establishment might want, but i can't think of a higher compliment.